[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 134 (Friday, July 30, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5203-S5204]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              The Economy

  Now, Mr. President, on a completely different matter, we learned 
yesterday that last quarter, our GDP finally regained its prepandemic 
level. It has taken about a year of economic growth just to recover 
back to where we started.
  Obviously, we are still far below where our pre-COVID trajectory 
would have had us today. Before this 100-year pandemic, Republican 
policies had helped build the best economic moment for American workers 
in recent memory. Unemployment was at remarkable lows. Wages were on 
the rise. Pay was growing faster for workers toward the bottom of the 
income scale--actually faster than those at the top.
  That was then. This is now. For the last several months, a different 
philosophy has guided our recovery. Our Democratic friends believe in 
borrowing, spending, and taxing at dizzying rates. They want to 
engineer some kind of socialist recovery from the top down. So how is 
it going? Well, that GDP report that came out yesterday was actually a 
substantial miss. Our economy grew almost 25 percent slower than the 
experts had predicted--another economic disappointment.
  Now, remember, this new administration and this Democratic Congress 
were set up for success unlike any other transition we had seen in our 
lifetimes. They inherited not one, not two, but three safe and 
effective vaccines that were spreading around the country. They 
inherited an economy that was raring to come back, thanks to five 
bipartisan rescue packages we passed last year.
  But instead of helping the American people get back to normal, 
Democrats decided they wanted to build back bloated--build back 
bloated. They jammed through a massive $2 trillion so-called COVID 
package that only spent about 1 percent on vaccinations and less than 
10 percent on public health. The rest went to a litany--a literal 
litany--of inflationary liberal spending.
  Now American families are paying the price: slower hiring than 
expected, slower growth than expected, a weaker comeback than expected. 
Their policies are sticking it to the middle-class families through 
higher prices at the grocery store, at the gas pump, at the hardware 
store, at the car dealership, in the housing market, and practically 
everywhere else that matters to families.
  Employers large and small, down to Main Street shops and construction 
sites, are struggling to hire and turning down work because Democrats 
decided taxpayers should keep directly paying people to stay home. Our 
country is flooded with safe, effective, and free vaccines for anyone 
who wants one, but Democrats are still making small businesses bid 
against a special government handout that rewards, believe it or not, 
not working.
  Our bipartisan work last year left our country primed and ready for a 
comeback summer, but it is becoming clearer and clearer that Democrats 
in the Capitol and down Pennsylvania Avenue pursued economic policies 
that have fumbled the handoff.
  Now, in the days ahead, Democrats want to steamroll ahead with yet 
another reckless tax-and-spending spree: more unhinged borrowing, 
printing, and spending; more welfare spending with no--listen to this--
no work requirements; everything from amnesty to big chunks of the 
Green New Deal and historic tax hikes poured on top for good measure. 
This kind of reckless taxing-and-spending spree would make their last 
failed package look like a walk in the park, and the pain that families 
are already feeling would just be beginning.

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